LI kids meet ‘Top Chef Jr.’ hosts Vanessa Lachey and Curtis Stone

We met fashion model, TV host and actress Vanessa Lachey and celebrity chef and author Curtis Stone, of the show “Top Chef Jr.,” when they were in Manhattan recently. Vanessa is the show’s host and Curtis is the head judge of the competition.

“Top Chef Jr.” is a cooking competition for middle-school-aged kids. At what age did you get your interest in cooking?

Curtis: I started cooking when I was young and then I turned it into being chef. I started when I was 4 or 5 and I was cooking with my granny Maude, and about 20 years later I was in a restaurant named after her. She was from Yorkshire, which is in the north part of England, and she used to make this delicious sweet fudge called Yorkshire fudge. I still remember those days of being in the kitchen with her. You are so impressionable when you are that age, and you start doing things, and now my whole life has been about food.

Vanessa: When I was 16, I was dating a guy in my school and he loved his mom’s cooking so much. So I thought to impress him, I would try to make his mom’s mac and cheese, his mom’s meatloaf and anything that might win him over. It was never good enough because Mom’s cooking is always the best. But it kind of got me interested in cooking. And then when I was in my early 20s, and again I was trying to impress another guy and I invited him to dinner, and I wanted to cook for him because they always say a way to guy’s heart is through his stomach. I got passionate about cooking then, but I am still learning. It was a fun process I was able to go through with my boyfriend, and now I do it when I cook for my husband and my kids.

What career path would you like to see your kids go down?

Curtis: We talk about this all the time at home. I have gotten so much out of food and I love it, but it is a hard job. If you are a chef, you are in the restaurant until midnight and on Saturdays. Your busiest times in the restaurant are when everyone is out having fun, so I ask myself if I want my boys to be chefs. My wife is an actress and she loves what she does, but I don’t know if I want my kids to deal with the rejection of going on auditions and being judged all the time. They are both, in different ways, really challenging jobs. I think the answer to it all is we want them to do whatever they want to do, what makes them happy.

Vanessa: I have three kids, a 5-year-old boy, a 2-year-old girl and a 9-month-old boy. At first my husband wanted our 5-year-old to be a baseball player. He didn’t want the impact of football and he thought that a team sport would be better than an individual sport. Then he said he wanted him to be a lefthanded pitcher. I asked him why, and he said because there aren’t that many out there. He would be a good commodity. Lo and behold, my son is not into sports. He loves singing, which is what my husband does. We find him singing in the back of the car or making songs up around the house. This what he has naturally gravitated toward. But again, it is whatever makes them happy.

Do you ever watch yourself on TV?

Vanessa: It is never fun. I always ask, what am I doing? Is that what I look like? Is that what I sound like? I found that I have a “resting face” when people are talking to me [she makes the face] and I am really listening, so I always wish that the camera would pan off at that point. My thinking face is very confused. I don’t really watch it to watch myself but to see how the product came out. We worked on this for almost four months, and we were on set for 10 to 12 hours a day sometimes, and it is an hour show, so I want to see what moments they took.

Curtis: It comes up sometimes. I don’t watch a lot of television, to be honest.

What is the best meal you can make?

Vanessa: I make a mean stir-fry from scratch. If you ask my family, that is probably their favorite.

Curtis: Vanessa impressed me. She would watch the contestants cook and then she would go home and make that dish. She would use the young chefs as inspiration. She would post them on Instagram sometimes.

Vanessa: I have the palate of a 13-year-old child. When they made potatoes au gratin with a special sauce or the kid who made a burger and put butter in it, I would go home and try that. That is what I found out, there is no right or wrong to our young chefs. The young chefs, their imagination is beautiful, and they know what they want. The love flavor and they are not afraid of that. I got inspired every single day.

Vanessa, what is the biggest fail you ever had on “Dancing With the Stars” last year?

Vanessa: The beautiful thing about this is I am not a dancer. So for me just to learn how to do this was the icing on the cake. I am so proud of the family I made with my husband and the work that I have created. By the way, we have gotten picked up for season two already. For me, the dancing is the icing on the cake, so I don’t see it as a failure. I have stepped on people’s toes and then sliced up my entire toe. He just glued back my toe together instead of giving me stitches. I didn’t see that as a failure because I do not dance professionally, so all that I was doing, I was learning. If you keep that perspective and see it as learning and only a way to get better, you will be all right.

What is the best and worst thing about being recognized in public?

Curtis: The best thing is sometimes you get asked to the front of the line at TSA at the airport. I don’t like cutting lines, and I am saying, “So sorry” as I walk to the front of the line. I never cut lines apart from being at the airport or Disneyland. The worst thing is people always want recipes, and I don’t always have them off the top of my head. It is also a little weird when they ask for your autograph when you are in the bathroom.

Vanessa: I think the best is knowing that you are reaching out to so many different people. For example, when I see a 9-year-old boy and he exclaims, “I saw you on ‘Wipeout!’ ” Or a woman might say, I saw you on “Dancing With the Stars.” For me it is fulfilling because I know that I am doing something that inspires people in different ways. I think the worst thing is explaining to my kids why things happen. For example, explaining to them why people want pictures with me. It is not a bad thing, I just don’t have an answer for it. I am grateful for all this because you guys are the ones who watch us and make us who we are.

If we were in a cooking competition, what would be your advice?

Vanessa: Do you like to cook? My advice would be to try to make something new, and then you can find out if you can really impress yourself.

Curtis: I would say keep yourself organized. what happens to people who are not used to being in a kitchen is you get yourself in a horrible mess, and then you can’t see anything. You cut up some vegetables and you leave the peeling out. You cut up carrot and you leave it over there. You use some salt and then you put it down, and then you can’t find it later. The more organized you are in the kitchen, the more clean your station is. I say a clear mind means a clear vision. You have to keep it clean and organized.

Can you tell us an experience when a kid was too shy to talk on camera?

Curtis: We didn’t really have any shy kids on the show. They were all so into their food that it came quite naturally for them. We did have some interesting moments with them. Sometimes the dishes didn’t turn out quite like they wanted them to be. So they would be super bummed. The contestants really see themselves as chefs. They don’t see themselves as kids. So while they have their white jackets on, they are chefs and they want to impress the judges and they want to cook beautiful food. I will be the first to admit that it doesn’t always turn out the way they want. These chefs are cooking under a crazy time crunch and with cameras on them, too. There were some ups and downs, and the kids would get choked up. That is why I loved working with Vanessa, because she was incredibly compassionate to the kids when they needed it. She would give them hugs when they needed, and she brought some motherly characteristics to the show.

Vanessa: I was surprised at how professional they were. I think as a mother, I am always going to see my little guy as my little guy. He is like 5 going on 20, and my daughter is 2 going on 17. It is really amazing to me to see how grown and secure you are when you are doing something you believe in at such a young age.